Scott Morrill auctioned off a controversial item at the final auction of 2014 at the Elks Lodge in Dover. In his 11 years as an auctioneer, he said he never had anything like this. The Ku Klux Klan robe, a symbol of the white supremacist group, went for $375 at the auction Tuesday night.

"After a lot of soul searching, we decided we would go ahead and sell it because it is a piece of history," says Morrill.

A Rochester woman recently discovered it tucked away inside a bag in her attic, Morrill said. The woman, who wants to remain anonymous, took the patch off and found her father's name and the year 1924 written in pencil. Morrill said the KKK had a presence in Rochester from 1923 to 1925.

"They were mortified when they found it because they are not people that would normally be members of the KKK," Morrill said.

The woman asked Morrill if he'd auction it off.

"Well, we had to think about it to be honest with you because it goes against my grain. I knew we were gonna get a lot of negative press from this," said Morrill.

Morrill said many have demanded he pull the robe from the auction or destroy it.

"The way you learn from your mistakes in history is by preserving the facts, rather than destroying them or making them sugar coated," he said.

"I don't fault the auctioneer for trying to make a buck. I do fault their judgement," said former State Rep. Rogers Johnson.

Johnson said the robe could serve a purpose in a civil rights museum, but he wonders why any private buyer would want it.

"What do you do? Do you display it? Do you keep it in a private collection? Who would want something like this in a private collection?," Johnson said.

No one has told Morrill why they'd buy it. He said he hopes it's for historical reasons.

Information on who bought the robe at Tuesday's auction was not immediately available.